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User blog:Krysto2002/Venture League: A Dream Makeover
A lot of people have been openly complaining about the venture league lately and to be totally honest, this coming from an avid Sentinel/Paradox, they're probably right. Of all the classes, it seems the least time and effort has gone into Venture. Now do not get me wrong, I love the way they look, venture classes LOOK great, but sadly don't back that up in function as well. So after many conversations and brainstorms I have (will add very soon) compiled an idea of what the ideal Venture classes SHOULD do, as opposed to what they DO right now. Mind that I have no issues with VALIANTS at the moment so I will leave them out of this arguement Stay tuned! DareDevil DareDevil was my personal first venture class and to me (and everyone else probably) they embody exactly what the name implies. They face the greatest danger with the worst odds without a second thought. They can be a bit hasty but can always back up their hot-headedness. They have decent stats but also bring speed into the equation. Their guns have short range so these guys are and always will be about getting up close and personal with the big baddies in the Universe. Now I can understand the LU dev team shaking in their boots screaming, "Careful, don't make them too powerful or we'll get more complaints" but I think they lost sight of exactly what X imagination points can get you nowadays. Faction abilities were recently buffed up so terribly that you would imagine they just fused every attack with a surf broom, unfortunately they slapped an eqully massive cost on those abilities and as such unless your paradox or in Forbidden Valley (where you get more powerups than cash) you'll likely never use them more than once in a single life. To give you an idea of the scope of this, remeber that the Headbash Helm is 4/4 with a 10 damage for 3 imagination attack (seriously, remember that!) and that for 3 imagination the double blaster can unload 10 damage into a single target, so can the overcharged blaster into multiple targets. The ripsaw gives you 6 for 3 I believe and that has a range akin to a spinny-chargeup valiant attack. Remember all that since ANYONE can get all that and it will probably be for the best since the only things venture gets that your average joe does not is: #A 4 attack combo (whoop-de-do, every time you start over you have that 2-2 to get past so you may as well be flinging around a 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 and so on until you and your toothpick get smashed to bits) #A special speed boost (oh wait, isn't there such a thing as hot coacoa... but thats Xmas only... but then there's that Bat Lord Helmet... gee what's the point in speeding up for half the time and an extra 8 imagination!) #Magnetism (Bat Lord, Old Skool Shirt, etc., etc.) #A slew of overpriced abilities that are easily replaced with a Bot Suit and some creative items. All that being said, Venture is swiftly losing in the Jack-of-All-trades it seemed to have been but with all these new items it's a wonder why venture isn't obselete entirely. Some current stats: *Attack: 2/2/3/4 *Armor: 13 *Life: +2 *Imagination: +15 Abilities: *Super Jump: 8 splash damage for 7 imagination *Fig on Fire: about 13 seconds of speed and fire for 8 imagination *Fire Extinguisher: 14 AoE/cone damage + freezing for 10 imagination *Charge: Burns an enemy for 1x9 damage for 6 imagination Passive Abilities: *Magnetism *Show "Dangerous Enemies" This is what we have NOW, compared to some other classes it is unique, but not in any way superior. Sure the abilities are top notch, but they are so expensive that you'll hardly use them more than once or twice per life. Since you respawn with 6 imagination you can't use ANYTHING until you heal something back. So Daredevil is supposed to face off with danger, but as-is it seems the most they can do is run up, light themselves on fire and pray to Hael Storm they aren't blown to bits before they can launch off their next over-priced attack. Now assuming you're in FV you're fine, but then FV is suited for rank 2 so... The point I'm trying to make is Daredevil abilities are nice if you intend to take down your target REALLY fast, problem is everything past FV is too tough for the Daredevil so you pretty much just get smashed. As it stands in a team the Venturers offer nothing back besides being a beat stick, but then they need a paradox player pumping imagination into them 24/7 and so on and so on. My initial idea was, if Venturers in general are explorers and the go-getters of the universe, they ought to reflect that a bit. One particular change I had in mind, not just for Daredevil, but for all Venturers is a minor swap of armor for life, more on that for Adventurer. Mainly, I suggest total stats be changed to 10A, 16I, 5L The attack is also pretty lopsided since the far end of a combo is the least used and all of the damage seems to be piled there saying "ooh look, a pretty 4, good luck GETTING TO IT!" you have to suffer through a 2/2/3 before that pretty 4... which is punishment in my book. That 4 hit combo is there so you can go from enemy to enemy non stop, so I stand by an equal distrobution of 2/3/3/3, but it might as well be 3/3/3/3 at this rate since without blocking, healing and so on and also without a good charge up this weapon is looking pretty... sad. One major addition I had in mind, especially for Daredevil was a kit-bonus that, "After rebuilding restores a small amount of armor and imagination" 3 of each to be precise (1 for rank 1 and 2 for rank 2, etc). This concept hasn't really ever been considered and it essentially allows players to bounce back into the battlefield faster (it would also allow immediate use of the speed boost) rather than having to first scrounge around for some smashables. Daredevil as a whole generally suits the class, but recent changes took away some of what made them great. As it stands the abilities are powerful, but that essentially makes it useless since in CP there's pretty much no imagination anyways so good luck using them... ever. Super Jump is fine as-is. It has a good use in most situations without over really being overkill, making it worth the 7 cost. Fire Extinguisher on the other hand went too far. 14 damage is WAAAAY too much, especially since it lugs a 10 IP price tag with it. All these abilities have fast cool downs, so compensate back to what it USED TO BE! Moderate damage for moderate imagination. I suggest the Extinguiser do 7 damage for 5 imagination instead, at least then you'll be using it. However the major issue with the extinguisher that most overlook is that its freezing simply doesn't work. To be fair, it does work on MOST enemies, but those enemies are the ones that will be OHKO'd by the thing so there's no point. The damage threshhold needs to be BELOW the average HP of an enemy you are freezing so they actually can be frozen. Which is why a possible 5 damage for 3 imagination is even better. Next, the DD's pride and joy, Fig on Fire. Only lasts a few seconds now so there isn't much of a reason to use it as an actual SPEED BOOST now is there? Bat Lord helm is for everyone and is free to use, it lasts about the same amount of time and so on and so on, so why would a Daredevil use a speed boost that costs EIGHT IMAGINATION FOR ONLY ABOUT 15 SECONDS!? Sure it does damage to enemies too, but to be totally honest you can't win a fight on fire alone. That is why I suggest Fig on Fire''' be extended to 1 minute in length but deal damage far less frequently', say half or one quarter as fast. Otherwise at least drop the cost to 5 or something, but as-is FoF is pretty much out of the question if it only affects you. I could undrestand the cost if it lit up your friends too, but it doesn't. Let's face it, you only use this ability in 2 situations: 1) You need a speed boost, save the EIGHT imagination and put on the bat lord helm we know you're hiding or 2) you want to inflict fast damage on an enemy, fire and forget style... well the cost doesn't justify either. *According to NHQ the ability lasts 15 seconds and does about 5 damage to each affected target... big whoop. Lastly, the charge-up. Every other charge-up in the game (venture and valiants not included) is free to use. Sentinels block, Assembly heals, and paradox charges imagination, but right now Venture has a grossly overpriced attack that you'll likely never use. Since charge-ups have a nasty habit of going off when you don't want them to, losing so much imagination on one seems like a kick to the face. I suggest that instead of 6I for 9 damage we have something like '''3I for 5 or 6 damage'. Back to that double blaster a while ago... well remember how I said you got 10 damage for 3 imagination? Here we seem to be getting less for more... am I the only one who noticed this!? Buccaneer coming next. Buccaneer To be totally honest I think the dev team got lost somewhere between "making a pirate" and "making a Venturer" that they forgot which is more important. They go so jammed in the middle of the two that the end result is a mildly retouched Daredevil. THIS is why class diversity is important! Why would anyone bother getting both if they're nearly the same!? That being said what little separates DD and BC is widened a tad by the valiants. Total honesty here, the Broadsider is severly unbalanced. Not unbalanced as in "this is too powerful" or "this is blah blah blah" but unbalanced in that they can't decide just what it's supposed to do. On one hand it shoots a close range splash of 11 damage for 5 imagination on the other it spits out the least accurate and lag induced schooner in the universe for 10 imagination and deals 15 damage all on a 4/4/4 with all the grace and finesse of a beached whale. Pirates. Maybe they should rethink that because any sober sailor would double the cannon fodder and get 22 for 10 instead of 15. That all being said, since the Buccaneer NORMAL charge costs 6 and deals 10 I see a small inconsistency... On a side note I think the Rutcarver is A+ material for the daredevil, both in function and design, etc. So what is wrong with the Buccaneer? Well it's supposed to be a pirate but I think someone missed that little point when making it because the difference between this and the stunt man about one page length above is a few uninteresting details. Adventurer (for both good and bad) distances itself from these fellows enough to remind me why their called SPECIALTIES (hint: it's because each one is special!). So let's compare Daredevil and Buccaneer: #Stats: Daredevil sacs one point of Armor for one point of imagination... ouch #Attack: While there used to be 1 point difference, I believe they are the same now, except Daredevil has a greater attack range, not by much though. #SAME head ability #SAME magnet ability #Daredevil burns enemies, Buccaneer knocks them down. The latter can be better since they won't hurt you back, but then you have to rely on your weak weapon to finish the job... good luck. #Charge ups cost the same, Buccaneer does 10 damage at once, Daredevil seems to do 9 over time, but *might have an AoE... who cares, it costs too much anyway #Daredevil hits hard with 14 damage and freezing, while Buccaneer stuns enemies (briefly) then hurts them for a meager 5 damage. #Daredevil shows you monsters on your map that will smash you, Buccaneer shows you treasure. That's handy until you HAVE EVERYTHING ALREADY at which point... So all this ranting aside, what makes Buccaneer a Buccaneer? Well the gear looks the part and the shark and monkey fit as well... sort of... but otherwise it's just a moderately altered Daredevil (or the Daredevil is a moderately altered Buccaneer, I prefer the former as it makes the suggestion of change a little more called for) So Buccaneer needs a ten foot pole with which to distance itself from its siamese twin or vice versa. We can start of course by''' taking the whole super jump thing and starting from scratch'... but for the sake of expediency let's just scrap the helmet ability altogether and figure out something more inspired already! How about something similar to the wingreaper's charge? My idea for a new head ability is called '''Tidal Wave' and when used summons a wave of water to surge forward in a cone-ish pattern, damaging and sweeping away enemies, leaving them stunned. The ability would cost 5 imagination and would deal 3 damage to all enemies hit, knocking them back and leaving them stunned briefly. Some might say a second stunning ability is overkill, but the Funky Monkey is intended for prolonged stunning whereas Tidal Wave is meant to give you and your friends some breathing room. So this ability would send out a wave in a sort of < pattern, getting wider as it goes. All enemies in range will get pushed to the end of the AoE so they all end up in the same place, giving this a gravity well sort of use in that now you can move in with your Broadsider or such and eliminate them. The low damage compensates for the large area of effect (AoE) and for the added knockback/stunning. Now for stats. Buccaneers are sea-worthy, tough and surly so them needing armor is like saying Assembly needs imagination (which with the rising costs of abilities... inflation I presume... is surprisingly TRUE!) so that being said, drop 3 armor, add 3 life... possibly 1 or 2 more imagination so you can USE some of the abilities. The weapon is nice, it's a cutlass and a little mini cannon... how nice! Too bad the thing may as well be made from plastic (wait a moment here) because 2/2/3/4 isn't getting you anywhere. For those of you who can do math, 2+2+3+4 = 11 and 3+4+4 ALSO = 11 so instead of a 3/4/4 we get an extra attack and all that lovely damage is tacked on as a useless 2 damage opening attack. I seem to remember something about weapons getting stronger, but I guess Venture missed that. Sentinel has block so losing some attack is fine by us, Assembly can heal... no complaints, and Paradox can refuel the one stat people neglect to refill every now and then (allowing them to actually make USE of their abilities!!) so all this out in the open, just give us a 2/3/3/3 again and we will be happy... maybe make that LAST attack do''' SPLASH DAMAGE''' it is a CANNON '''after all. The splash damage would also justify USING the whole combo and also justify the 1-hit Daredevil attack for being a 3/3/3/3, but you could always then make Buccaneer 2/3/3/4 but at this point you open up a slippery slope that might end at 10/10/10/10. Again for those of you who failed math, 2+3+3+3 still = 11 just instead of opening with a measly 2/2 you open with 2/3. If you think that doesn't matter, try using a 2/2/2 and a 1/2/3 and tell me which is better. Now the charge up suits the Buccaneer rather well so I'd leave it be if it didn't bug me so much that 6 imagination gets me 10 damage. WOW 6 for 10, how generous... when new guns get 3 for 10... so does the Headbash Helm. Do I need to make myself any more clear about this? LOWER COST OR HIGHER DAMAGE''' I prefer the former. To make it more interesting, since we're talking SHARKS here, how about some sort of imagination or life refund for each gobbled stromling, eh? Just a thought. Otherwise, now let's look at Full Steam Ahead. This is essentially a copy/paste of the DD FoF but instead of burning the enemy, you knock it down. This would be wonderful if it actually worked on EVERY enemy instead of just the ones that occasionally swarm you. Don't get me wrong, this will deal with mobs easily... but at high cost low duration I think the daredevil paragraph above justifies a change. FSA seems pretty well designed and is different enough to make this class a tad different in some ways, just like Samurai and Knight who, despite appearances have radically different strengths. Next is the Funky Monkey (not the ice cream!). I like the design and idea here if it wasn't so poorly executed. Major adjustments to the various details are needed. Duration, cooldown, cost, damage, all need adjustment because the banana bomb as-is just doesn't do. Too much cost, too little out of it. I say drop the 5 damage explosion after and make it last longer so the whole cool down isn't just... cooling down. Finally, as to passive abilities, we have magnetism (GOOD), Treasure Finder (MEH, works at first and since new stuff always comes...) we come to the realization that these pirating buccos are missing something still. I don't want to give them the same-old bounce back DDs were just given so I figured this is more appropriate: "chance to restore life, armor and imagination on smashing a maelstrom enemy" which occasionally gives you back some stats for smashing. I was thinking 1/1/1 back for every 3 smashes... but that seems a tad low... maybe 2 Armor, 1 Life, and 3 Imagination per 3 enemies smashed? Adventurer Just leaving a note to self for next update: Adv = 12 A, 16 I, 2L. Charge = 5 for 4 dmg, boost = 6 IP, whip 8 IP for 8, 8 IP for 10 L, 3/3/3, long range Ooh boy, is there a bit to do here... Adventurer as-is: *12 Armor, 16 Imagination, 2 Life *3/3/3 ranged attack *Charge: 5 imagination for 3 bolts each doing 4 damage *Speed Boost: Moderate boost for a LONG time, affects allies, all for 6 imagination *Whip: 8 Imagination for 8 damage splash and stunning *Rations: 8 imagination for 10 life *Full Mini-Map enhancement: Enemies & Treasure Again I'll say that you should go from 12 A 2 L to 9 A 5 L, thrown in one more imagination for fun This is going to need a lot of work since there isn't actually much here. Adventurer = Adventurer, so to be perfectly clear one would expect to do a lot of adventuring. Well there isn't much to explore in LU... but the universal speed boost suits them very well. It seems perfectly costed as you can use it right away after spawning just in case. I'm gonna go ahead and''' leave the Boost alone'. The weapon however seems to be a flop. Sure you can snipe enemies and keep them at bay with a whip, lion tamer style, but to be honest, enemies are fast, the aim is BAD and in pretty much EVERY scenario there's a ranged enemy in the mix so there needs to be some way to make this weapon both BETTER and more useful. Obviously the devs made this thing 3/3/3 when they saw all the other new weapons and thought "gee, everything else is good but weak, so we'll make this bad and a little stronger". Of course there's a flaw in that imaginary logic. I suggest the crossbow go from 3/3/3 to 5. Not 5/5/5, just 5 (possibly 4) and with a faster cool down between combos. Why? Well when using your 3/3/3 you're naturally standing STOCK STILL WHILE ATTACKING, which defeats the purpose of the adventurer since those fast-approaching enemies won't wait for you to turn and run. So my suggestion is either '''make it high power, single fire', or allow the Adventurer to walk and fire, or Fire-on-the-run as I call it. This compliments the Adventurer's range and the fact that LU battlegrounds are typically breathing-down-your-neck close combat. Good luck finding a sniping post ANYWHERE in the game. I personally know a little trick though, with this weapon. Using the WASD movement you can strafe and fire, only stopping for each shot. What makes this a TRICK is that using this method you restart the combo with each attack, so cooldown never officially happens, but aiming like this is virtually impossible. Even if auto-aim kicks in you'll find yourself quickly running TO the enemy trying to smash you.... oh wait, this is an issue even when you AREN'T doing this. The charge is also a flop in every sense save that it can mirror the Gat Gun and deal 12 damage for 5 imagination to one BIG target, but if that's the case, any self-respecting player would just use the Gat Gun itself. I mean, I like the concept of a spread of bolts, but for heaven's sake the darn thing rarely works. You are paying 5 imagination to shoot 4 damage bolts! Even IF you hit with all 3, preferably on seperate targets, you are only dealing 4 damage each, so unless you are facing an army of Mechs good luck making this handy. So re-doing this ability might be necessary. I suggest that instead of 3 separate projectiles you make the bolt-fan a single animated particle of a huge fan of arrows (plenty more than 3) and rather have it deal 4 damage to EVERYTHING in range. Of course you should shrink the AoE to a short and wide attack. This way it isn't too strong (4 damage) but makes up for your natural ranged combat with a short range mass effect attack. Possibly consider dropping the cost to 4 as well. The whip snap is just plain awesome, but it is disproportionate! It makes an integral part of the Adventurer's stun and bolt combo, but at 8 imagination per snap you can't use it often, a REAL SHAME! Since it costs 8 and you get +16 from the kit... (plus your natural Imagination) you're looking at 3-4 uses. So I put in my humble and screaming opinion: 4 DAMAGE 4 IMAGINATION! maybe add a little "hiya" sound clip for fun :P Next up is, of course, the Rations ability. Painful enough you have 8 imagination healing 10 life. How sad... find me someone who needs 10 life that isn't already smashed... Unless you are teaming up with 3 bat lords (you're not) this ability may as well just go POOF. Besides, RATIONS implies you were prepared, you're ready for the situation... so why would someone who is ready for emergencies ONLY HEAL LIFE!? So to make this a *good ability, I suggest you change it from 8 imagination for 10 life to 6 imagination for 8 imagination, 5 armor and 5 life. If this is the case you get an Evergiving Goblet effect... which, mind you, is already a better item than this since it gives you life and the imagination to get MORE life thereafter... naturally you'll want to give this ability a longer cooldown then. As for an extra passive, I doubt this new and improved adventurer would need it, so I think the double map enhancement covers this. Category:Blog posts